Directed by

Written by

So
I wrote in 1994, in a review of what in fact is a better documentary, Ray
Muller's "The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl." I was
referring to Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" (1935), about the
1934 Nazi Party congress and rally in Nuremberg. Others would have agreed with
me. We would all have been reflecting the received opinion that the film is
great but evil, and that reviewing it raises the question of whether great art
can be in service of evil. I referred to "Triumph" again in the
struggle I had in reviewing the racist "Birth of a Nation."

But
how fresh was my memory of "Triumph of the Will"? I believe I saw it
as an undergraduate in college, and my memory would have been old and fuzzy
even in 1994, overlaid by many assertions of the film's "greatness."
Now I have just seen it again and am stunned that I praised it. It is one of
the most historically important documentaries ever made, yes, but one of the
best? It is a terrible film, paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, overlong and not
even "manipulative," because it is too clumsy to manipulate anyone
but a true believer. It is not a "great movie" in the sense that the
other films in this group are great, but it is "great" in the
reputation it has and the shadow it casts.

Have
you seen it recently, or at all? It records the gathering together, in
September 1934 in Nuremberg, of hundreds of thousands of Nazi Party members,
troops and supporters, to be "reviewed" by Adolf Hitler. Reviewed is
the operative word. Great long stretches of the film consist merely of massed
formations of infantry, cavalry, artillery groups and even working men with
their shovels held like rifles. They march in perfect, rigid formation past
Hitler, giving him their upraised right arms in salute and having it returned.
Opening sections of the film show Hitler addressing an outdoor formation, and
the conclusion involves his speech in a vast hall at the closing of the
congress.

Try
to imagine another film where hundreds of thousands gathered. Where all focus
was on one or a few figures on a distant stage. Where those figures were the
object of adulation. The film, of course, is the rock documentary
"Woodstock" (1970). But consider how Michael Wadleigh, that film's
director, approached the formal challenge of his work. He begins with the
preparations for this massive concert. He shows arrivals coming by car, bus,
bicycle, foot. He show the arrangements to feed them. He makes the Port-O-San
Man, serving the portable toilets, into a folk hero. He shows the crowd
sleeping in tents or in the rough, bathing in streams, even making love. He
shows them drenched with shadows and wading through mud. He shows medical
problems. He shows the crowds gradually disappearing.

By
contrast, Riefenstahl's camera is oblivious to one of the most fascinating
aspects of the Nuremberg rally, which is how it was organized. Yes, there are
overhead shots of vast fields of tents, laid out with mathematical precision.
But how did the thousands eat, relieve themselves, prepare their uniforms and
weapons and mass up to begin their march through town? We see overhead shots of
tens of thousands of Nazis in rigid formation, not a single figure missing, not
a single person walking to the sidelines. How long did they have to stand
before their moment in the sun? Where did they go and what did they do after
marching past Hitler? In a sense, Riefenstahl has told the least interesting
part of the story.

There
is a lesson, to be sure, in the zombie-like obedience of the marching troops,
so rigidly in formation they deny their own physical feelings. One searches the
ranks for a smile, a yawn. But all are stern and serious, and so is Hitler,
except once when he smiles as the horses are marching past. But what else does
the film contain, apart from the "march-pasts"? There is a long
series of closeups near the beginning, of Nazi party officials mouthing
official platitudes. There are two speeches by Hitler, both surprisingly short,
both lacking all niceties, both stark in their language: The party must be
"uncompromisingly the one and only power in Germany."

One
searches for human touches. Riefenstahl had no eye for human interest.
Individuality is crushed by the massed conformity. There are occasional
cutaways to people smiling or nodding, but rarely ever speaking to one another.
There is no attempt to "humanize" Hitler. In his closing speech,
sweat trickles down his face, and we realize that there was no perspiration in
earlier shots. Is it possible that he posed for some of the perfectly framed
shots of him reviewing troops? A 35mm camera and crew would have been a
distracting presence in the street next to his car; one filming him from a high
pedestal would have had to be crane-mounted, and shot out of synchronicity with
the event.

"If
you see this film again today, you ascertain that it doesn't contain a single
reconstructed scene." So says Riefenstahl in her film's defense in the
Muller documentary. What does she mean by "reconstructed"? Certainly
we would not think the massed "march-bys" would be reconstructed. But
what of such scenes as the Workers' Brigade, where the men chant in unison,
presumably to Hitler, that they labor in the swamps, in the fields, etc., and
then, in response to the barked question, "Where are you from?"
individuals answer with the names of their towns or districts. They could not
have all heard the question; each answer would have been a separate set-up.

There
are also questions of spontaneity. During one Hitler speech, he is interrupted
bysieg heil!exactly six times, as if there were an
applause sign to prompt them when to begin and end, and we note that throughout
the film, there are no scatterings of individual voices at the start or finish
ofsieg heil!Only a single massed voice, in unison.
I found myself peering intently to observe other moments of the film revealing
its mechanism. Although Riefenstahl used 30 cameras and a crew of 150, only one
camera appears to be visible on screen; during the outdoor rally before three
gigantic hanging swastika flags, you can see the camera on an elevator between
the first and second, its shadow cast on the second. And in a shot of a man who
has climbed up a pole to get a better view of a parade, she cuts back to him
giving the right-arm salute; I reflected that he could not hold on without both
hands, and realized that his left foot is out of frame in both shots --
standing on a support, undoubtedly. Among minor details: Everyone on screen seems
to have a fresh haircut.

That
"Triumph of the Will" is a great propaganda film, there is no doubt,
and various surveys have named it so. But I doubt that anyone not already a
Nazi could be swayed by it. Being a Nazi, to this film, means being a mindless
pawn in thrall to the godlike Hitler. Yet it must have had a persuasive effect
in Germany at the time; although Hitler clearly spells out that the Nazis will
be Germany's only party, and its leader Germany's only leader for 1,000 years
to come. At the end, there is a singing of the party anthem, the Horst Wessel
Song; under Nazi law, the right-arm salute had to be given during the first and
fourth verses. We see a lot of right-arm saluting in "Triumph of the
Will," noticing how Hitler curls his fingers back to his palm before
withdrawing the salute each time, with a certain satisfaction. What a horrible
man. What insanity that so many Germans embraced him. A sobering thought: Most
of the people on the screen were dead within a few years.

Note:See also "The
Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl" and "Downfall"
(2005), with a haunting Bruno Ganz as Hitler during his last days.

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